


Dominique Weasley vs Hogwarts

by Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 06:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14635635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi/pseuds/Starfleet_Command_Unit_Bi
Summary: Dominique Weasley, Dom to everyone, had high expectations for her Hogwarts days, especially based on the stories her uncles told her about their time, as well as what her dad had gotten up to despite becoming Head Boy. She had simple ambitions, to be the best student in the year and learn how to have a real party at the same time but on top of that she also has to deal with learning a few things about herself in the process.A few very queer things about herself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Cursed Child never happened. I'm sure we can all agree that this is for the best.

Dominique Weasley was the second of her family to attend Hogwarts. She never stood out much compared to everyone else. Teddy was himself, ever-changing hair with a cheery personality that made everyone smile, Victoire who was the exact image of their mother in perfect Veela glory, James Sirius and Fred II who were already giving the Marauders a run for their money, Albus who was so wonderfully wonderful, Rose who had Hermione’s brains to be the perfect future student and Louis who was a pretty boy in every meaning of the word. 

She was just Dom. 

Nobody called her by her full name. She was smart, smarter than Rose easily, and there was something about her that attracted people to her like a magnet in a way that had her parents not worrying too much about if she would make friends. Dom understood people better than anyone really gave her credit for, especially for an eleven-year-old. If she wanted something, she got it, although it was hardly ever selfish.

 

When it came to the bets as to what house she would be in, most people said Ravenclaw. Ron, who she had got into several arguments with over nothing in particular, claimed Gryffindor but she would be a hatstall. Grandma Molly bet Hufflepuff because of how dedicated Dom was to her siblings and cousins and how she would never, ever give up any of their secrets, even if she got in trouble for it. Fleur was the only one who suggested Slytherin. 

 

And Fleur was the only one who was correct.

 

As Dom got onto the train, her sister already leaving her behind with a bag of sweets and a half-hearted good luck, there was only one compartment not completely filled. A girl with jet black hair and peculiarly silver eyes sat in it, accompanied by a pair of twins, both with mousy brown hair and matching cocky grins, another boy with dirty blonde hair already in his school robes and talking excitedly, and a girl with auburn hair smiling politely at the excited boy but looking bored out of her mind. 

 

“Hi, I’m Dom. Is there a chance that I could squeeze in here?” she asked nervously, leaving out the rest of her name so that they might not recognise her. The only time Dom was uncomfortable with attention was when it was to do with her family’s fame. A group of teenagers and young adults fighting and dying in a war is hardly something you should celebrate.

 

“Of course,” the dark-haired girl said, a light accent that Dom didn’t recognise gracing her words. “I’m Kit. The twins are Edgar and Edward.”

 

“I’m Ed,” the one with freckles told her, smirking.

 

“I’m Eddie,” the one without freckles told her, smirking the exact same way.

 

“This is Adam and that is Mellie,” Kit finished, smiling warmly. There was something about the way the girl looked that had Dom enraptured, hanging onto each individual word and causing her to stare as if she were some crazy stalker. “I can move up, so you can sit here, if you would like?”

 

“Sure,” she managed to utter, sounding nowhere near as cool as she normally did. The others all seemed nice enough and by the time the trolley full of sweets had arrived they were at ease enough to hold a decent conversation.

 

Ed and Eddie were telling a particularly hilarious tale about one of their uncles and a giant duck in the ocean when Teddy dropped by. His hair was its usual sea blue and artfully styled to look just the right level of dishevelled to be attractive. Dom could understand why basically everyone in the school attracted to guys was into him. Mellie and Adam stared at him with open interest, Ed and Eddie managed to be a little more discreet about it and Kit just simply smiled as if he were any other student.

 

“Hey, Vic sent me to check on you to make sure you were all settled,” he greeted. “Also, to steal some of your sweets if you have any of the ones that she likes. Uh, hi everyone. I’m Teddy Lupin. Hufflepuff house. We’re the best so I hope you’ll be with me.”

 

“Hi,” Adam greeted cheerfully. “My whole family’s been in Hufflepuff, so there’s a good chance that I will be as well.”

 

“Here’s hoping,” Teddy told him before turning his attention back to Dom. “Sweets?”

 

Dom threw him the bag of sweets she had bought with her sister in mind, knowing all about Victoire’s hidden sweet tooth and knack for stealing sugary goods. Or, at least, convincing other people to steal sugary goods. Dom herself had been quite a willing accomplice in many of the girl’s schemes over the years.

 

“Thanks,” he grinned before heading off back down the carriages to where Victoire and their group of friends undoubtedly waited. 

 

“So, is he like your cousin or something?” Eddie asked curiously once silence settled over them again. Dom shook her head.

 

“He’s not a blood relative. He’s my uncle’s godson but he was raised half with his grandma and half with Uncle Harry so he’s practically family anyway. Head over heels for my sister,” she smirked.

 

“Is that why he’s collecting sweets for her?” Kit asked.

 

“Probably.”

 

“What houses do you think you guys will be in?” Adam asked the group, his excitement never-ending. Dom found it be endearing and from the way that Mellie affectionately rolled her eyes, she knew she wasn’t the only one who did so. “I just know I’ll be in Hufflepuff.”

 

“Well I suppose it will be very good to have a loyal friend,” Ed teased. “I bet Ravenclaw. Eddie’ll be a Gryffindor. We figured it out when we got our letters, family were very enthusiastic about the whole thing. What about you, Dom? Do your family do House bets as well?”

 

“Yep, most of them bet Gryffindor but that’s ‘cause most of them are Gryffindors. Nan thinks I’ll be a Hufflepuff and Uncle Percy thought Ravenclaw. Mum’s French so she didn’t go to Hogwarts and doesn’t really understand the house system. She thinks Slytherin. Mellie?”

 

“Probably Hufflepuff like Adam,” she said shyly. “I like to think I’m hard working and I try to be loyal, so I guess it’s a good fit.”

 

Adam scoffed at this. “Please, you’ll be a Gryffindor. You’re like the bravest person I know. Everyone back home thinks so. Kit, you’ve not said anything.”

 

“I’m not from a wizarding family, I don’t really understand the way that students are sorted. The teachers mentioned something about traits and hatstalls?”

 

Yet again, Dom was transfixed by the girl and still could not place where her accent could be from, no matter how hard she tried. Luckily, Adam saved her by launching into a long explanation of the history of the houses, how the sorting hat worked, what traits the houses typically had and the usual stereotypes of each house. It was interesting enough, and it definitely fascinated Kit in a way that made Dom think she’d fit in Ravenclaw. It was as if she absorbed every bit of information the others said just for the slightest chance it could be important later. And still somehow managed to come off as the coolest person Dom had ever seen. 

 

Some people were just so perfect, she thought.

 

As the train pulled into Hogsmeade, Adam started pestering them to get into their school robes ready for arrival. They all turned around to give the other half privacy and checked each other over to find several missed buttons and that Mellie somehow managed to go eleven years without learning how to tie a tie which Eddie found hilarious before teaching her very patiently how to do it. The train was pulled to a stop by the time that everyone was ready and the group kept bursting into giggles over the tiniest things.

 

Hagrid, a huge shadow in the mist, was calling all of the first years over to him. She grinned at the familiar figure and made her way to the boats, Mellie and Kit following close behind as the boys gazed up at the huge man. It was three to a boat so they split in half, girls in one and boys in another, to travel across the Great Lake. Dom forced herself not to tell the others about the giant squid that lived there. 

 

“Are you excited?” Mellie asked, peering ahead and trying to see the castle.

“I suppose,” Dom replied, lost in her own thoughts. “It’s a bit nerve-wracking, to be honest. Don’t you think?”

“I’m nervous,” Kit agreed. In this light, her eyes almost appeared to glow on their own and it made their unnatural colour seem even stranger. “Do you think any of us will be in the same houses?”

“I suppose statistically we would be,” Mellie answered. “But I don’t know who we would be with, or who else we might have in our houses.”

The trio were silent even when they rejoined the boys and entered into the hall. Dom saw Victoire at the Ravenclaw table, smiling proudly at her, and Teddy sat at the Hufflepuff table far less maturely and was waving excitedly. She didn’t understand how the two of them could be in a relationship when they were both so obviously different to each other. But then again, she didn’t understand how most people could be in a relationship.

The names began to be called.

Mellie, Mellie Becker, was called up first of their group and placed almost immediately in Hufflepuff. Teddy drowned out the majority of his house when he cheered and made sure there was room for her on the bench. The twins were called up next, Ed and Eddie Creek, with Eddie being sorted into Ravenclaw and Ed in Gryffindor, the reverse of what they had predicted. Then it was Kit. Greyson was an odd name for a wizarding family, although Kit had said she wasn’t from a wizarding family so that question was answered. She was also sorted into Ravenclaw. Then Dom was called up.

“Dominique Weasley,” Professor McGonagall called out and whispers broke out among the hall. A lot of people turned to stare at Victoire and Teddy who were the only ones of their family currently attending the school. Dom walked over to the stool where the hat was promptly placed on her head.

“Another Weasley,” the hat said. “Well, you are an interesting one from the rest. I believe I sorted all of the previous generation into Gryffindor. This generation appears to be a little more … diverse in your traits now. And you got rid of that ridiculous red hair, I mean really, where else could I sort you all? But I see where you fit, clear as day.”

“Slytherin!” the hat called out and for a brief moment that hall was silent. The Slytherin table clapped and cheered but the whispers could still be heard over it and even some of them were questioning the hat’s choice. Victoire looked confused and then grinned and Teddy clapped as loud as he would have done had she been sorted into Hufflepuff with him. 

At least it was an interesting start to her school life.


	2. Chapter 2

Dom sat silently for the entirety of the feast. The rest of the group kept glancing over at her sympathetically. Eddie and Kit were sat close together and she felt a bolt of jealousy at the fact they were at least together. Without her even noticing, Adam had been sorted into Hufflepuff along with Mellie so it was only her and Ed who were left on their own. She wondered if it was true that her common rooms would be in the dungeons like her uncles always said about Slytherin house. 

She wondered if anybody would be angry about it or, even worse, disappointed in her. Whilst neither Victoire or Teddy had been sorted into Gryffindor they were still sorted into houses that didn’t have the mark of you-know-who still hanging over them. Dom knew she would never hear the end of all of the jokes, no matter how good intentions came with them. 

Some people tried to talk to her but evidently the expression on her face was enough to scare most of them off. The food was bland, the inviting smells from when she first entered the hall gone, and Dom felt sick to her stomach with nerves. Her mother had predicted Slytherin so it wasn’t like she would be receiving a howler in the post but her mother wasn’t from Hogwarts, she didn’t understand the prejudice against them and the prejudices many Slytherins still held.

As the group walked to the common rooms, actually in the dungeons as she was told by her prefects, Dom was more and more aware of how separated she was from her friends. Even more people were staring as she walked passed, her Veela genes coming into effect. The part of her she probably hated the most but it kept her connected to her mum a little bit more than her questionable French. It was just annoying when she heard the people whispering behind her back. 

“Alright first years, you will be getting your timetables tomorrow and then your lessons start,” the girl said proudly. “I know there are beliefs about what Slytherins are but I know that you will prove people wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious. Go off to bed now and we’ll both see you in the morning.”

Dom followed the girls to the correct dormitory. There were only four, including herself, but everyone understood why that was. The same reason why there were so few people in her aunts’ and uncles’ years; most of the parents in the generation before had been killed before they could grow up. A sad truth but a truth nonetheless. Nobody else had taken much notice of the whole thing but the other three had struck up a conversation.

“Hey, you’re Dominique, aren’t you?” one of them asked.

“Dom, no one calls me Dominique,” she insisted. “What are your names? I didn’t catch them.”

“Jess.”

“Nadia.”

“Kat.”

She smiled at them warmly, feeling slightly more at ease. The dormitory was much nicer than she had expected, the green glow from the glass reflecting into the room and displaying the lake. Dom wondered if they could see the giant squid from their windows. Far better than the Gryffindor common room and dormitories if she was able to force herself to think about it. Not as far to walk to the Ravenclaw common rooms and nothing could really beat being right by the kitchens where the Hufflepuffs went. 

“Go to bed! The girl prefect yelled cheerfully as she stuck her head into the room before winking. 

“What was that about?” Nadia asked curiously.

“It’s tradition in Slytherin to spend up until two in the morning talking to the people in your dorm so that by morning we know each other well enough to not feel friendless in our classes,” Kat explained. “It’s the whole thing about how Slytherins stick together. My brother is a third year in Slytherin and he explained it to me. They only yell as a fakeout for the teachers in case they’re listening in but no one really cares.”

Jess sat down on her bed heavily. “What are we supposed to talk about?”

“Anything we want,” Kat shrugged. “Which is the worst thing we could ever be told in these circumstances. Uh, anyone else have siblings?”

“Two brothers, one older one younger,” Nadia said.

“One older sister, one younger brother,” Dom told them. “Victoire is already here; she’s a Ravenclaw. What house is your brother in?”

“Hufflepuff. Mother and father weren’t too happy about that but my aunt was a Hufflepuff and she’s an auror which is what they want my brother to be so she had a go at them and suddenly they’re very on board with it all,” Nadia replied, smiling. “Purebloods really are quite strange, aren’t they?”

“I can second that,” Kat agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “I’m an only child so I have the whole ‘our entire family name is relying on you’ stuff as well as all of their stupid beliefs. We’re not even that powerful of a family-not even English originally. Russian, I’ve spent most of my life there, but you should see the way they react when they’re reminded of it in public.”

“Only child as well,” Jess said. “I completely get what you mean about all of the hopes and dreams being on you. The way my parents talk, it’s like they expect to die any second now and I’ll be left the entire family business to look after. Ridiculous. I suppose it must be hard for you, as well, Dom. With everything your family’s done during the war. Must be hellish.”

“Unpleasant,” she said, surprised by how quickly they seemed to understand the whole thing. “But Victoire and Teddy take most of it and I’m the middle kid so we’re usually forgotten. It’ll be my cousins that have the worst of it, that’s what everyone says. But yeah, not fun.”

Until the sun came up, they complained about all of the legacies they had to carry on with the stresses that their parents brought as well. It was nice to voice the problems that Dom had with her family to people who didn’t judge her for it, understood it and even had their own anecdotes. With families as influential as their own they had had their fair share of press coverage and they were regaling each other with the most entertaining stories they had gone through.

“So, anyway, my father has just finished this whole rant to this high up Ministry guy he works for about how we have very little ties back to Russia and things and how I only lived there because things were too hectic at home to be raised properly, and the reporter is eating it up. My father is really irritating bubbe at this point because she was actually born there, so she goes up to my father and starts speaking in rapid Russian which gets him annoyed. Then she turns to the reporter and says in the broken English with the thickest accent I have ever heard, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know the English very good’ and you just see my father snap. We get home and she says to him, in perfect Queen’s English complete with the stereotypical posh accent, ‘I think that went quite well, don’t you?”

Loud laughter echoed in the stony room, collapsing into giggles on the floor. It was that time in the morning when everything, even the most mundane things in the world, were the funniest that they had ever heard. Dom’s lungs burned as she desperately tried to draw breath in as she laughed. The others weren’t in much better state, tears streaming down Kat’s face after Jess’ story about an enthusiastic puppy. 

“We should probably go to sleep, shouldn’t we?” Nadia suggested when they finally fell silent. On mutual agreement, they clambered into bed and, for the others, it didn’t take long to go to sleep. For Dom, it took a while to manage that. Whilst it was reassuring to know that she could actually get along with her housemates and that she wouldn’t be the odd one out, it was still the worries of what might actually happen when she interacted with the rest of the school, dealing with the prejudices of Slytherin house and what people expected a Weasley to be capable of. 

She went to sleep slowly, filled with thoughts of what people would say to her, what her family would do when she went home. Probably better if she maybe stayed for the Christmas holidays. Victoire and Teddy always did, to help out with their housemates who didn’t really have people to go home to. Dom didn’t think any of her friends, the twins, Kit, Adam and Mellie, were in those situations, she hoped that they weren’t, but she would stay anyway.

The next morning, Dom could feel the lack of sleep she was on. Judging by the bags underneath her housemates eyes, they were also feeling it. But they were all smiling as well, and it was a comfortable silence that they got ready in, brains still properly turning on with the earliness of the hour. Their prefect popped in to check that they were actually awake and actually getting ready instead of just sleeping through breakfast. Apparently, according to Kat, some people often did that and they suffered from it. 

“Ready for breakfast?” Nadia asked once they were all dressed and done up. “Let’s go then. Who do you think we’ll have our first lesson with? And who do you think they’ll combine our class with? You know, because we have to because of how small the classes are.”

Immediately, Dom thought of Ravenclaw, a chance to talk to Kit again, and wondered why that was where her mind had first gone to. She had thought of Kit a lot during the conversation the previous night, as well as the rest of their friends, hoping that they were getting along with their housemates, but had always gone back to Kit first. She was the one Dom had bonded with the most on the train, so that must have been the reason.


	3. Chapter 3

Dom studied her timetable carefully. Her first lesson was with the Ravenclaws, thankfully, and she caught Kit’s eye over breakfast as they ate with a smile. The guys in their house were talking to the others, five of them for their four, and seemed nice enough. She paid them little attention, trying to find out how her friends’ nights went. Eddie and Kit were talking quickly and didn’t seem to be interacting with the rest of their house, Ed had made friends with what seemed like everyone in Gryffindor. Adam had been sorted into Gryffindor as well and was sat right next to him. She regretted not noticing where he had been sorted because of how wrapped up in herself she had been.

At least they had each other. Mellie was evidently struggling, not really talking to anyone on her table. Adam kept looking over to her and smiling reassuringly, waving wildly whenever he wasn’t busy stuffing himself with as much food as possible. He reminded Dom of her brother. Teddy was sat with the first years and was making sure to ask Mellie questions to keep her involved which was reassuring for her. Dom was grateful that he was there, the epitome of a good Hufflepuff. 

The post came in and many of the first years stiffened. This would be the response to parents finding out what houses their children were in. There didn’t appear to be any Howlers, at least not yet, so no one was in too much trouble. Her family owl, Errol the Fourth, deposited a letter and a small parcel in front of her before flying off to Victoire who he had always liked better than the rest of them. Victoire had a way with animals that rivalled Newt Scamander himself and was planning on becoming a magizoologist. She was only a little jealous of her sister because of it.

Opening the letter, it was a mix of her dad’s and her mum’s handwriting as well as a mix of French and English. Her mum’s way of improving her language skills. It was necessary. After spending several minutes translating it, with the help of Nadia who had grown up in France, she was touched by the message.

Dear Dom,

We are very happy that you have been sorted. We are not so happy that we had to be told by Victoire but we will overlook this. Being in Slytherin, a house of ambition and cunning, is something to be very proud of and we are very proud of you. Your sister also tells us that you made some good friends on the train and we hope this is true. Friends will help you adjust to school life a lot better, after all.

Your Uncle Ron is the only one who is disappointed in your sorting and that is because he put the most amount of money into the betting pool so it is more a reflection of him than you. Grandma Molly is already working on your Christmas jumper with Slytherin colours, because she’s worried that you won’t feel very comfortable about it. Maybe send her a letter to stop her worrying? We would also like a letter.

Louis misses you a lot. He doesn’t like being the only child at home-he thinks we focus on him too much and needs some time by himself. Your dad is not taking it very well either-I agree with your brother when he says he feels suffocated. But he will adjust. You remember how he was when Victoire first left. He got over it, it just took him a while. A letter would help.

Enclosed are a portion of my winnings from the betting pool. A selection of your favourite sweets as thank you of being proof that I know you the best. If your aunts and uncles ask, this is not bragging and I would like you to tell them that. Of course, you would have to send them a letter for that to happen so it might not happen.

All our love,

Mum and Dad.

She smiled to herself and opened the parcel. As promised, the parcel revealed a small selection of sweets including a lot of Chocolate Frogs. Her mother knew about her secret collection that she had hidden in her trunk to make sure that Louis didn’t steal any of them when she was gone. Dom loved her brother, she just didn’t trust him. 

“Your parents okay with your sorting?” Jess asked curiously.

“Yeah, mum won the betting pool so I have sweets as a thank you. I think they were very subtly telling me to send them a letter. It was mentioned a lot and they didn’t write much. Anyway, Charms with the Ravenclaws first.”

“You’re friends with two of them, aren’t you?” one of the boys asked. “You kept smiling at one of the girls and the guy she was talking to was waving at you.”

“We were together on the train,” Dom explained, hoping that they wouldn’t take offense at her having other friends outside of their house.

“Cool. I’m Chase, by the way. The guy used to play opposite me in our Quidditch competitions, do you think he would want to partner with me when we have Broomstick Training with them later in the day?”

“Probably, Eddie’s really nice.”

The two groups merged together as they walked to their lesson and Eddie hugged her excitedly, as though they hadn’t just spoken the night before. Kit was slightly more reserved, a little uncomfortable around the other Slytherins, but nothing less than absolutely civil and kind. She even joked with Kat about their similar nicknams. Apparently Kit was short for Katherine and Kat was short for Ekaterina. A very Russian name.

“Did you have a good night?” Kit asked as they waited outside. They were slightly apart from the rest of the group but still in earshot to hear Eddie and Chase regaling Quidditch stories to the class. Loudly. “They seem like nice housemates.”

“They are. Took a while to get to sleep but yeah, it was fine. What about you? How was Ravenclaw Tower? Solve the riddle okay?”

“A lot easier than I expected. That will probably change. But they have so many books. Even muggle ones and they’re not all school related, either. Eddie and I spent most of the night looking for our favourites. We all have a mountain of books to get through-all completely different to each other. Ryan is more focused on muggle studies-he can’t wait for when we do that.”

“What about you? What are you interested in? With books, of course,” Dom asked, wishing she hadn’t lost all ounce of coolness the moment she stepped foot on that train. She had yet to have a problem with her housemates but that was only a matter of time.

“I haven’t got a specific genre but I really love folklores and history. If you read enough of them, they all are very similar, just differing in tone depending when it was written and by who. It’s so amazing. You see, lots of folktales are based on historical events that are changed slightly to teach a moral lesson to children. And folklore were passed by word of mouth before they were written down so they are all very similar because people mushed them all together. And it means that their history is all mushed together.”

“Wow, that is … something,” Dom managed, astounded by the sudden barrage of information that Kit had just told her. Before anything else could be said, Professor Flitwick appeared and ushered them in. They sat at tables of four, Kit, Dom, Chase and Eddie all sharing together, and got out their books. It was just an introduction to the subject, most of which was general knowledge to those who had been born to magical families.

Kit was writing notes on everything, one of only a couple of people in the class, and so Dom did as well, not wanting her friend to be the odd one out. She obviously had a much better understanding of magic and the school that muggleborns did, despite not being from a magical family, and there was also the mystery of her strange eyes and accent. Veela was off the table, she had jet black hair and Dom would have noticed if she was. Maybe she could just ask Kit, a simple question about her eyes wouldn’t be completely inappropriate.

Dom just wasn’t sure how she would go about it without someone else overhearing and drawing what could be very unwanted attention to the situation. 

It was a quick hour once Dom had something to do and already they were packing up to go to second period. Kit was very methodical about how she handled her books and equipment, the first to finish tidying up. Dom smiled as charmingly as she could.

“Eddie and I were going to go to the library at break with Mellie. We have a class with Gryffindor next so we’ll tell the others then, so would you like to come with us?”

“Definitely.”

Being caught behind the rest of her housemates, Dom hurried to catch up. Kat and Jess had waited by the corner for her, realising she hadn’t been with them when they left, and Nadia had gone ahead as she was the one with the least confusing map out of the nine of them. Dom wasn’t even sure what she had done with her map. Buried at the bottom of her trunk, giving a lot less thought than she had given even her chocolate frog card collection.

“Defence Against the Dark Arts,” one of the guys, Adrian, said, reading from the timetable. “Did you guys know we get a talk from the Harry Potter at some point in the year? Like, he actually comes to our class and teaches us. And our herbology teacher is Neville Longbottom, the guy who fought against the Carrows and killed Nagini, Voldemort’s snake!”

“He’s your Uncle, isn’t he?” Chase asked. “Is he as cool as everyone thinks?”

“He wears his Christmas sweater all year round and the last time I saw him he was looking for his glasses whilst wearing them. But yeah, he’s pretty cool with this sort of stuff.”


	4. Chapter 4

Second period passed slower than the first did, most probably because Dom had something else to look forward to that meant that she wanted it to be as short as possible. Instead of being sat in groups like in Charms, they were sat at individual desks. She chose a seat at the back, in the corner, and Mellie, along with the rest of the Hufflepuffs who came in late from a Potions lesson, sat next to her, smiling in relief.

“Good Potions lesson?” she whispered as it started. Mellie nodded, surprised by the slight breaking of rules. “I’ll be coming to the library with you, Kit and Eddie. Ed and Adam should be there as well.”

“You shouldn’t be talking.”

“It’s just a beginning lesson, Mellie. You never do any actual work during the first, like, week. My sister told me, besides, we’re just getting started with the lesson. If we get in trouble, I’ll take the blame. It’ll be fine. Anything interesting happen in Potions?”

“Adam was so excited to put his hand up that he knocked something off the shelf and it fell all over the floor. No one got hurt or anything but Slughorn kept bringing it up and smirking at him. I cleaned it up before he could step in it and he seemed impressed by that.”

“You might get to be in Slug Club.”

“Slug Club?”

“It’s a terrible name but it’s just people he think will be influential later in life that he wants to get attached to for his benefit. People like my uncle and aunt, stuff like that. Anyone with a powerful family, or a particularly promising student. Doing a quick spell off the bat will get his attention.”

Every so often Dom would glance up at the board to note some of the stuff down if she didn’t already know it. Mellie hardly looked at her, working diligently, but she was still answering and looked to be enjoying the conversation. It was something and Dom was determined to keep it going. Nothing in this lessons seemed to be new and from the glazed look in Mellie’s eyes, she had the same opinion.

“Miss Weasley, is there something that you want to share with the class?” Professor Gabite asked, noticing how her whispering was getting a bit louder.

“I was just asking Mellie for the spelling of something you said, Professor, I’m sorry if I was too distracting,” she replied immediately, smiling bashfully in a way to appear innocent.

“Next time, just put your hand up and ask me, do not distract your other students,” he simply told her. 

“But isn’t me asking a question to the class disrupting everyone, instead of just one person?” Dom continued. At this point, whenever they were in public, it would be time for one of her parents to pull her away and apologise to whoever she was speaking to before it got bad. Her parents were not here and Dom was going to take full advantage of it.

“Do not talk to other students in my lesson, Miss Weasley and we shall leave it like that,” he told her firmly before turning back to the board. She heard him mutter something that sounded very similar to “just like the twins” but wasn’t going to push it that far on just her first day. He had seven years to get used to how annoying she would be to him.

Her and Mellie continued their conversation quietly and going silent whenever Gabite glared at them. Dom wondered if the professor knew the Weasley twins. He looked young enough to have been at school with them, but everyone knew all about them after the Battle and the incident with Umbridge which was told at every memorial, every year. She loved it every single time that she heard it. 

Once the lesson finished, Dom almost threw her books in her bags to pack up first and it wasn’t just to get away from Gabite. Whilst she liked her housemates, they had yet to compare to her friends. They walked over to the library and found themselves to be the first ones there. It was easy enough to sit in companionable silence, both of them looking over the homework Gabite had set them. Six inches of parchment on some pages of the textbox he had highlighted about the importance of understanding spells.

Not the most interesting of work but homework very rarely was. 

“Hey guys,” Adam exclaimed, coming over with the others and earning a death glare from Madam Pince. “We just had Astronomy. How was Defence Against the Dark Arts?”

“Dom got caught talking to me, lied about it and then annoyed Professor Gabite when he accepted her lie,” Mellie said. Ed gave Dom a high five. They settle in the chairs in a strange sort of circle. No one was really in the library yet, very few people had homework and the ones who did were happily ignoring it until they needed to get it done. 

“What about your lesson?” Dom asked, drawing the attention away from her misdemeanour. “What did you have?”

“Transfiguration. If Professor Campbell is less strict than McGonagall, I don’t know how I would have ever survived school with her,” Eddie sighed dramatically. “He gets good results from his students but, Merlin, at what cost?”

“Their will to live?” Kit suggested out of the blue, making the rest of them laugh.

“Probably,” Ed agreed. “Haven’t had any homework yet, thankfully. Oh, have you got letters from your parents yet? Mine and Eddie’s had this whole thing about how proud of us they were and how our ‘brotherly bond’ shouldn’t be impacted by house rivalry.”

“My parents kept going on about how annoyed they were that I hadn’t sent them anything and they had to find out about my sorting through my sister instead,” Dom said. “Felt like they said it every other sentence. My dad takes it hard. He was a wreck when my sister left and now it’s just my brother, Louis, at home.”

“I got the same as you and Eddie,” Mellie said. “Oh, and Adam, they’re very proud of you as well but are disappointed you aren’t in Hufflepuff like me and the rest of your family.”

Adam simply laughed at the slightly passive aggressive comment. Kit had remained oddly silent, strange eyes watching them with curiosity. She fiddled with a necklace that had been hidden under her shirt, a thin pendant hanging from the silver chain. Dom wasn’t sure why she thought it but suddenly she wondered if Kit had anyone at home. When the train had left the station, there had been no one she waved to still on the platform even though everyone else had been.

“What did your parents say, Kit?” Ed asked, turning to smile at her. Eddie grew suddenly tense and worriedly glanced back over at his fellow Ravenclaw.

“I don’t, uh, have parents. My uncle is my legal guardian but he’s a bit too busy to do the whole parenting thing with me so he, um, doesn’t. Not really. A letter a fortnight, we agreed on and so he won’t be able to send one until next week,” she explained awkwardly, eyes flitting everywhere but their faces.

Dom felt her heart clench painfully. She could still remember when Teddy had explained to her that he didn’t have parents. Even knowing he was happy and he had a family to look after him, it had hurt to know he missed out on these sorts of things. From what Kit had told them, it sounded as though she didn’t even have that to comfort her. With all of their difficulties, Dom still couldn’t bear the idea of not having her parents or her siblings with her.

“I’m sorry,” Ed told her immediately, looking genuinely solemn and guilty.

“It’s fine, it’s been like this for as long as I can remember. I don’t have any problems with it-people just think it’s a bit weird. My uncle does care about me, he just has to work all of the time,” she continued. “Really, it’s fine.”

“Well you’re always welcome over at ours,” Ed said warmly. “Mum and dad probably wouldn’t even notice you were there. See we’ve got a big house with all of our aunts and uncles and their kids so there’s always some people there bustling around. It’s our grandparents’ house but they don’t really do much anymore-just sit in their chairs talking and pulling the occasional prank on their kids.”

“When I grow up I want to be just like your grandparents,” Dom grinned. The whole group laughed then, drawing the attention of Madam Pince again. They probably would not be welcome in the library if they continued like this. Dom didn’t mind that too much.

“Oh, there’s been a bunch of talk about a midnight quidditch match next month once all of the teams have been selected,” Adam told them, very quietly. “Everyone is invited so long as they can keep quiet. All of the Gryffindors are going and the seventh years are putting Silencing Charms all around the pitch so that we can cheer as loud as we want. And some sort of illusion thing so the teachers don’t see it.”

“That sounds amazing,” Eddie grinned. “It’s so annoying that we can’t have our own brooms until next year-we can’t play for any teams on a school broom.”

“Well if you’re so amazing I don’t want you playing against my house,” Dom teased.

“Hey now, our parents said that we are not allowed to let house rivalry get in the way of our bond,” Ed chastised. 

“Your brotherly bond with Eddie,” Kit pointed out, “Not between the rest of us. We can get as ridiculously over the top as we want. No one has told us anything about what we have to do yet.”

“That’s the spirit,” Teddy cheered, coming over to the group with Victoire. “It’s not breaking a rule if there is no rule. That’s how I went a year without getting a detention.”

“When you were a first year,” Victoire pointed out. “Now you’ve just gotten sloppy.”

“I haven’t gotten sloppy-the teachers are now constantly suspicious of me,” he smirked. “Anyway, how were your first lessons? Haven’t caused any problems yet, have you Dom?”

“Professor Gabite doesn’t like her,” Mellie informed him.

“I wanted to catch up with Mellie and he didn’t seem to like when and where I did it.”

The bell rang, signalling the end of break.


	5. Chapter 5

Dom felt the rest of the week pass in a similar way. They would have their lessons with their house and whichever house they were partnered with, already making a reputation for themselves as troublemakers, and then meet up in the library when they would instead annoy Madam Pince. She grew closer with her housemates, learning the guys’ names as well and they all talked together over meal times. Even Mellie managed to make friends in her house, Teddy ensuring that she was never left out. 

“Hey, Dom,” Kit greeted, walking up to her. She had been running late to Defence Against the Dark Arts after a talk with Hagrid and was hurriedly trying to find her way to the classroom whilst the staircases decided that they were all going to change there and then. Kit didn’t seem to have a problem with the changing building, relaxing against one of the bannisters as it swung round. Just as it was passing over Dom’s staircase, she jumped off and landed perfectly next to the Slytherin.

“Hi, that was … cool,” she managed. “Uh, I’m running late to Defence. Don’t you have a lesson or something?”

“A talk with Madam Abbott; it’s not half an hour yet but I get the whole period free. I could help you get to Defence, if you want,” Kit offered, silver eyes hopeful.

“Uh, yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”

They walked together up the staircases, talking quietly so as not to draw any of the teachers’ attention to them in case they got in trouble for being late. Dom struggled to look away from Kit. Something about her eyes kept drawing her back, like they were enchanted. This would be a better time than ever to ask about them, she decided.

“Hey, why are your eyes, uh, the way that, um, they are?”

“Oh, I’m a Changeling. Sort of. Our actual name doesn’t really translate-that’s the best thing we’ve got but it isn’t very useful. Already has a lot of other connotations. My eyes are sort of like my aura, although that’s not really a thing, but, still, the actual word doesn’t translate well and it’s not the easiest thing to explain.”

“Could you try?”

“Well Changelings, my type of Changeling, we can change into wolves. Not like werewolves, they don’t change into wolves they’re sort of like a strange mix and that’s more of a disease. Ours is a birthright. Anyway, we are part of a pack and our eyes show our strength. The strongest Alpha is in charge of the pack, no matter how old they are in comparison to the others, and our eyes are how we sort of assert dominance. Not how it works but that’s how other people understand it. They show our emotions as well. If I get upset or any negative emotion then they lose some of their silver and it’s harder to shift.”

She tried to process what she’d been told. Everyone knew about Changelings, they were in several fairy tales that most children were told when they were young, but the world’s view on them was not the most flattering. Many people didn’t trust them, considering them dangerous, especially with how separate they were from the world. Their own language, a separate history and a different way that their world worked. The Death Eaters had hated them almost as much as muggleborns. 

There had even been riots when Dom was a baby from former Death Eaters who had been angry at a Changeling being offered a place at Hogwarts. Several dozen Changelings had been killed and the prospective student had pulled out over safety concerns. Evidently things were better but situations were tense between the two groups after the incident. Kit was waiting patiently for her to say something, fidgeting slightly.

“Wow. So, do you turn into a big wolf? What colour is your fur? Is it the same colour as your hair? Can you understand each other when you’re wolves? Can you understand other wolves?”

Kit laughed although it sounded more like a noise of relief than of amusement or happiness. “We’re about twice the size of normal wolves and they’re bigger than most people think. Fur is the same colour as my hair, so it’s black. We can understand each other through the pack bond but it’s not like talking. There are no words or anything it’s just … we can see each other’s thoughts and things right from when they think them. It’s hard to explain. All of us just sort of understand it; we’ve grown up with it, like you with magic I suppose.”

They were no longer walking. It would explain a lot. Kit’s odd accent, her eyes, the way she understood certain things about this world but still struggled with other concepts like many of the muggleborns. Dom didn’t actually know much about Changelings beyond what was general knowledge and she wondered how much of that was actually true. Her parents would be some of the first people to point out what the public believed about a species that wasn’t quite human wouldn’t always be true, with her dad having been attacked by a werewolf and her mum being a quarter Veela.

“I’d get it if you were uncomfortable with it,” her friend continued. “A lot of people are worried I’m dangerous. I’m not, I swear, but people still feel weird about it. Don’t like those that aren’t human and all that sort of stuff. And you have to get to your lesson anyway.”

“I’m not uncomfortable with it,” Dom reassured. “Besides, I’m not even fully human. One eighth Veela and dad was attacked by Greyback so I’ve got some of that in me as well. Even if I was though, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. You’re my friend and you’re good.”

This time, Kit’s relief was evident.

“Thanks. Uh, you should probably get to Charms before Flitwick gets annoyed.”

Running together down the hallways, Dom arrived at the classroom, panting and out of breath. Kit had to leave quickly as they heard Gabite come to the door and there was no point them both getting into trouble for something. Besides, Dom didn’t mind taking the blame for something that was her fault. She was good at looking good and innocent, even if the teachers were beginning to understand that it was just all an act.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Professor. I was speaking to Professor Hagrid, I lost track of time and the staircases just kept moving,” she explained, not quite lying but definitely not telling the whole truth about what had happened.

“Everyone makes mistakes like this in their first few weeks, and I suppose I should give you the benefit of the doubt in this case,” he said. “Try to make sure it doesn’t happen again, Miss Weasley, or you will have to face a punishment. Go to your seat. We’ve just started on the theory of a new spell so do your best to keep up and do not distract your fellow students.”

“Yes, Professor,” Dom replied, going to her usual seat in the corner where Mellie had save it. She smiled in thanks and got all of her things ready. As much as she disliked Gabite, he was a good teacher and she was very good at the subject. It gave her a lot of free time in the class when she finished everything early and decided to talk Mellie through everything they were doing. Whilst her friend was easily the best in their year at Transfiguration, one of the most complicated subjects, Defence was not something that came naturally to the Hufflepuff. 

“So why were you actually late?” Mellie asked quietly when it came to pairs work. “I could tell that wasn’t the entire reason, you were hiding something. You had that smirk of yours when you do something the teachers don’t like.”

“Kit and I were talking and I got distracted. She had a talk with Madam Abbott so she had this period free and she helped me get through the staircases. So I wasn’t breaking too many rules,” Dom told her friend, absent-mindedly correcting her work. Mellie did the same for her with Transfiguration homework so it balanced out.

“No, you were just out of class when you weren’t supposed to be, talking to another student when you weren’t supposed to be and lying to a teacher about what you were doing,” Mellie listed. “Don’t you get worried that you’ll be in trouble and your parents will be angry?”

“We don’t get along brilliantly and besides, being late to a few lessons and talking when I’m not supposed to hardly warrants a Howler, does it?” she reasoned. “Come on, Gabite is staring at us again. I don’t know about you but I really don’t want to have to present our work to the class again. Once was more than enough for the rest of the year.”

Once the class finished, it was the end of the day. Instead of going to the library to hang out with the others, Dom went to the quidditch pitch with her housemates to watch tryouts. Love for quidditch was one of the few things Dom had in common with the rest of her family and she loved flying. In broomstick training, her, Chase and Eddie were constantly challenging each other to see who could do the best in the class. It changed with every lesson.

She had her own broom, safely at home, and Dom had really considered trying out the following year, just to see how well she would do. Second years were hardly ever picked unless they were really good but the majority of the current team were seventh years so there would be a lot of open spaces for newer players. Chase was going to tryout the next year as well, and when in the common rooms after curfew they were often talking about tactics with the upper years. The rest of their group found it fondly annoying.

“We don’t really play it in Russia,” Kat was explaining to them as they walked over to the pitch. “There’s a country team, of course, for the World Cup, but we don’t really play it as much as the rest of you do.”

“What do you play instead?” Nadia asked curiously.

“I don’t know what it translates to but it is more similar to muggle football, if that makes sense,” Kat continued. She then proceeded to say something in Russian that must have been the name of the sport. “Like I said, difficult to translate it properly. Sort of like football, anyway.”

“Hurry up, you lot!” Chase yelled excitedly, waving over at the entirety of their housemates whilst he was much further ahead of all of them. “Tryouts are going to start soon and we need good seats.”


	6. Chapter 6

The stands were full of Slytherins. Dom wasn’t sure if this was a continuous thing of Slytherins stick together or a very recent thing but it was impressive to see all the same. The upper years avoided them, all first years were avoided by the majority of students simply because they were first years and Dom could understand that. She was fairly certain that most of the boys in their year, no matter how nice or polite, didn’t know how to use the showers. 

“Alright, split into groups,” the team captain announced loudly, the head girl who wore both badges in a way that made them glint in the sunlight. “Chasers in one group, beaters in another, keepers over there and seekers at the back!”

The chasers went first. Most of them were very good. A few stood out as amazing and a few stood out for the exact opposite reason but eventually it was narrowed down to two who would join the one remaining chaser on the team. Everyone cheered when the decision was declared, even some of the people who hadn’t got the position. Then the beaters had their go.

Dom had seen beaters doing tryouts and knew what to expect. Chase, being a beater himself, also knew what to expect. This meant that when the bludgers got uncomfortably close to them they barely flinched. The other seven members of their group did not know what to expect and the results were hilarious. Jess, Nadia and Adrian screamed and fell to the floor the first time the bludger came near them and proceeded to remain there for the rest of that particular tryout. Kat and the other two guys attempted to remain calm but still fell back whenever it came too close too quickly.

According to them, the decision for who would hold the positions of the two beaters could not have come quick enough. Dom was under the impression that they could have put in some more thought into the partnership of the two and voiced her concerns to Chase.

“I mean, yes, they have to be good beaters, but if they can’t work together it doesn’t matter how good they are because they will struggle playing together.”

“Yeah, Flint would have been better with Seaver than O’Hara but I’m sure with time they can improve,” he agreed. “So long as we get time. Gryffindor have had a problem with hogging the pitch for training sessions. There’s a big roster thing but no one really pays much attention to it. McGonagall loses it every time someone has an argument about it, apparently.”

They went quiet again when it was time for keeper tryouts. Only three people were attempting it and only the third one appeared to have any skill for it, although it was a lot of skill that she showed. Not a single quaffle went through any of the hoops whilst she played even though she was up against all three of the chasers. The decision was made quickly that the sixth year, Reid, would be the team’s chaser.

Finally came the seeker tryouts. There were only three people again but this time they all seemed to be about the same skill level-evidently very talented. These practices lasted almost an hour until the first seeker made a mistake and was taken off of the pitch. The captain kept the other two continuously drilling to see who would break first and soon the stands were silent in anticipation.

Dom hardly risked breathing as she watched them flying drills, swooping in and out of each other and diving hard towards the ground only to shoot back up again at the last second. She had seen professional players make more mistakes than them. Students from other houses had arrived to watch the spectacle and whilst she was briefly worried about the other teams spying, even though tryouts were probably not the most informative session that they could see, her attention was focused back entirely on the players.

Each drill was harder than the previous one, the Captain certainly knowing how to push them, and the strain was showing on the players’ faces. Eventually, almost half an hour after the first seeker had finished, the smaller of the two fell away after failing one of the drills. Cheers went all around after such a show and the Captain hugged all three tightly, breaking away once she realised how sweaty they had gotten during the tryouts.

The sun had begun to set and it was very nearly dinner time, meaning they had to rush to the Great Hall before the teachers realised that over a quarter of the school were missing and went to see all of the stands filled when they, technically, shouldn’t actually be there unless they were trying out themselves. Dom wasn’t sure anyone followed that rule, even when it was first put in place, but if the teachers were angry with them it was something that could be easily punished.

“That was amazing!” Kat grinned as they walked away, grinning. “I sort of understand the obsession with quidditch now. Are all of the games like that or is this just a one off?”

“Depends on how good the players are, the conditions of the weather, how high the stakes are,” Chase listed. “It’s a whole thing we had to learn at lessons. We won’t need it for Broomstick training ‘cause that’s just learning how to fly a broom to fly a broom, not to play a game.”

“But they do overlap,” Kat interrupted. “Because to play quidditch well you have to be able to fly a broom properly and to do Broomstick training you have to learn how to fly a broom properly and you have to learn broom maintenance which is needed in quidditch, like in all flying sports.”

The two continued their argument even when they entered the Great Hall. All of the three other tables were packed with students whilst the Slytherin table was barely a fifth full. Eddie and Kit waved at her from Ravenclaw and Dom waved back before realising that they were talking to her sister who was wearing a particularly evil smile when directed at her. In an instant, every embarrassing thing that Victoire knew she had done flashed through her mind and panic shot through her.

“You alright, Dom?” Nadia asked curiously, noticing how stiff she had suddenly become.

“Uh, yeah, yeah,” she replied, voice coming out strangely high pitched. “Just, uh, hungry, that’s all. Should we sit here?”

Dom couldn’t pay any attention through dinner. Victoire sat with Eddie and Kit the entire time, she had checked. Repeatedly. It was something her housemates had definitely noticed. 

“That your sister?” Adrian asked with a mouth full of potatoes. “The one talking to your two Ravenclaw friends over there?”

Dom nodded. “Victoire. I don’t even want to imagine what she’s telling them without my knowing.”

“Is it true you’re both part Veela?”

“One eighth. My great-grandmother was a Veela making my grandmother half and my mother one quarter,” she explained with the ease of having explained it a thousand times and the tiredness of knowing she would have to explain it a thousand times more as she got older.

“That Ravenclaw girl you’re friends with isn’t human either, is she?” Chase asked. “At least not fully, anyway.”

“Did the eyes give it away?” Nadia teased. “She’s a bit weird but I think most of the muggleborns are. I mean, she’s probably not a muggleborn if she’s not human but she’s probably not raised by wizards and witches. You know what I mean.”

Dom kept very quiet as they spoke. Kit hadn’t explicitly said what she told her was a secret but there was something about the way it had only been brought up when they were alone made her think it was something that her friend wanted to keep a secret. Thankfully it didn’t seem like any of them were anywhere near close to figuring out the truth and didn’t seem completely aghast at the idea of having a classmate who wasn’t human. She wasn’t even completely human, although her family status would have stopped anything major people would have bullied her for. 

“Do you think any of you will tryout next year for the team?” Chase asked as they moved onto desserts. Nadia and Kat shook their heads emphatically and Adrian very nearly spat custard everywhere when he said no.

“I’ll give it a try,” Dom said. “Most of them are seventh years or at least sixth years. There’ll be a lot of places to try for and the worst thing they can do is say no.”

“You’re flying up in the air. The worst thing that can happen is that you fall off your broom and die on impact,” Jess said, obvious fear in her voice.

“Not the biggest fan of quidditch, are you?” Adrian joked cheerfully. “Interested in any sport or is it just chess. Oh, you guys didn’t see last night. She beat four Ravenclaws a chess in a row in the library. They were cheering so loudly that Madam Pince chucked them out.”

“Was that what all that noise was about?” Dom gasped. “We could hear you lot from the other side of the library you were so loud. How badly did you beat them for them to yell like that?”

“I have a lot of practise playing against my parents’ work friends. They never went easy on me so I planned and planned and planned until I could beat them and by then I was obsessed with the game,” she admitted shyly. “It’s just really interesting, all of the strategies and things that you can do.”

“You are amazing,” Kat smiled, scooping another slice of trifle onto the girl’s plate. “You deserve that. If you enter into the House Chess Competition, I’ll even make you a whole trifle just for you. And it’s good trifle.”

“You can cook?” Chase asked in disbelief. “Like, good cooking?”

“Of course. My grandmother would never let any of us grow up not knowing how to do that. It would bring dishonour and shame to the family, in her words.”

“Then why are you so bad at potions?”

A dollop of cream landed directly on Chase’s cheek to his shocked disbelief.


	7. Chapter 7

“What were you talking about with Kit and Eddie?” Dom demanded, cornering her sister on her way out of the hall. Normally she would have headed straight to the library to talk with the others, the last one to get there as per usual, but she needed to know what had happened. She trusted Victorie normally, but she didn’t know what she was like at school and what lengths she was willing to go to embarrass her sister. “Come on, Vic.”

“Nothing horrible,” she replied nonchalantly. “And I was mostly talking to Kit, anyway.”

“What about? No one talks to first years unless they can help it!” Dom exclaimed, grateful that there was no one there to overhear them. “Why would you even want to talk to my friends? They’ve never interested you before.”

“Yes, but you’ve never been interested in anyone like this and I needed to do the older sibling threats. With subtlety, of course, didn’t know if you’d told her,” Victoire explained, looking very pleased with herself.

“What do you mean ‘interested’? They’re my friends, of course I think they’re interesting. And what older sibling talk? You’ve never spoken to any of my friends before.”

“Oh, you don’t know,” Victoire said in surprise, looking genuinely guilty.

“What don’t I know?” Dom almost wailed in frustration. She was studied by her sister for a brief moment. “Vic? You still in there or has your brain shut down from your own stupidity?”

“Hilarious, ma soeur petite,” she said dryly. “Sorry about this, but you have to come to that answer by yourself. Once you think you’ve figured it out, talk to me. Alright?”

“Not even slightly.”

Victoire flounced off, immediately looking like the stereotypical ‘blonde girl’ from all of those movies that Grandpa Arthur made them watch. It was all a front, a way of making people underestimate her to seem even better than she actually was. Quite genius, and something their mother used often. Dom had never really been able to pull something like that off. She was more rebellious in her lacking in care appearance whereas the rest of her family was more … aloof. Dad was rebellious, with his hair and earrings and clothes, but next to mum, it was almost as if they absorbed each other slightly.

Dom walked down to the library, wondering if Kit would tell her what Victoire had said. She trusted Kit to keep anything embarrassing to herself if it came to it, wasn’t sure about Eddie not telling at least Ed, but she just didn’t want something like that hanging over her friend’s head. Especially not after Victoire had described it as an ‘older sibling’ talk. Those were always threatening in some way or another. The others would probably be next, the Gryffindors and maybe getting Teddy to talk to Mellie. She was a nervous person, after all.

“Hey, you survived the food fight!” Ed cheered when she arrived. “What set that off between Kat and Chase? Disagree over tryout results?”

“Kat doesn't know much about quidditch because, you know, Russian, but Chase said something not so complementary about her potions ability and earnt an extra portion of cream to be applied directly to his face,” Dom said with a smirk. “McGonagall is talking to them both now and then Slughorn will have a go.”

“Looked intense,” Eddie added. “As is your sister. Did you ask her why she came over to talk to us because all she did was threaten us not to upset you?”

“Is she gonna do that to us?” Ed asked, almost worried. 

“Hope not. And I have no idea why she did it. Asked her, said I had to figure it out myself and then talk to her about it. My plan is to not think about it unless I have to and then I have another reason not to talk to her.”

“What if it’s something important?” Kit asked curiously.

“If it’s important, she would have outright told me. She’s not cruel-just annoying.”

“I don’t think I understand having siblings,” Kit sighed after a moment thinking the statement over. “You all hate each other but you love each other and you insult them constantly but get offended when someone else does it?”

“That sums it up pretty much,” Ed laughed. “Do you get lonely being an only child?”

“Not really. My uncle brings me on work things and I always have someone to talk to-mostly people who knew my parents back when I was a baby so I know them pretty well. Normally moving around too much to have time to get lonely. And my uncle was always there to give me something to do or play with so I was never actually alone.”

Dom wasn’t sure how much she liked that. On one hand, she was glad her friend didn’t have the childhood Uncle Harry had had, trapped under the stairs with an aunt and uncle who hated and abused him, but it still didn’t sound cheerful. One of the main things her parents had taught her about Uncle Harry and some of their other friends, ones who had been young students during the war, was that sometimes some of the damages that trauma did weren’t really noticed because they didn’t know any better.

Uncle Harry still liked to gush about how good the food Grandma Molly made, joking about how little he had at the Dursleys but as Dom got older she understood why he joked about something that definitely shouldn’t have been funny. No other way of dealing with it. Maybe reassuring them that she was fine was Kit’s way of dealing with being alone. Denial, Dom remembered it was called. 

“You can have my brother if you want. He’s called Louis, he’s nine, he’s cute and he’s annoying but you can get over it if you focus on solely his looks and ignore his personality,” Dom offered, only half-joking. Louis could get annoying sometimes, like all younger siblings. She understood Victoire’s annoyance with her sometimes.

“I’m good, but thank you anyway.”

They talked until Madam Pince was throwing them out, like how they were most nights, and they all split off in their different directions. Dom was the only one walking through the corridors. The rest of the first years spent most of their time in the common rooms and the upper years had later curfews and so were still out around the grounds or in the library or anywhere other than the school hallways where no one really wanted to be.

Her mind began to wander again, as it often did whenever she was alone, and she couldn’t help but think back to her conversation with her sister. Whatever it was, Victoire wanted her to figure it out for herself; the look of genuine guilt and panic on her face when she realised Dom didn’t know what she was talking about was something she wasn’t sure her sister could fake. 

Taking it logically, she thought over everything that she knew.

Victoire’s conversation was mostly aimed at Kit. It was a big sibling talk, a threatening type of one, although it could feel like everything her sister did was threatening when she was as perfect as she was. And the thing was something Victoire had assumed she knew and seemed surprised that she didn’t. As though it was something Dom was supposed to be protected by. Sort of like when Victoire was trying to figure out if Dom still believed in Santa Claus. 

Louis had unfortunately gotten wind of that conversation and both girls had gotten into trouble about not keeping their voices down when talking about things like that.

But still, nothing she could think of rang any bells. Kit was probably her closest friend out of the group, she always found herself wanting to see the girl smile or get her to laugh that sweet laugh of hers but that’s what friends did. Dom liked seeing the others smile and laugh, loved knowing that they were happy about something and was proud of herself knowing that she made them feel somewhat happy. Didn’t answer the question, however. 

Reaching the common room, she saw Jess and Adrian working on their potions essay due in two days’ whilst the others lounged about in the chairs, talking quietly. Being in the dungeons under the lake, whilst a morbid and fairly depressing thought, meant that glimmering lights flitted over the walls and floors, shining through the coloured windows to create some of the most beautiful patterns she had ever seen. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor could keep their high towers, this was worth only less than the Hufflepuffs being next to the kitchens. Nothing could beat the best midnight snacks in the castle. 

“I haven’t started that one yet,” Dom said, sitting next to the pair. “Is it hard?”

“It’s not fun,” Adrian sighed.

“Homework isn’t fun. Looks like you’ve written loads. Wasn’t it only supposed to be twelve inches of parchment? You’ve got like thirty, easily,” she joked, looking over how much room his small, cramped handwriting took up. It was a wonder he wasn’t a Ravenclaw.

“If the teachers like you in the first few weeks then they’ll hold that opinion of you for the rest of the year. That means if I do really well now, I don’t have to work as hard at the end of the year. Other than for exams. I mean, I’d like to come back next year.”

“Oh, I just remembered!” Nadia exclaimed excitedly, dropping her textbook to the floor with a loud thud. “I found out when the midnight quidditch game is being held. Next Friday night; games starts at midnight so get there about quarter to. Only a few first years have been told so we should probably tell the others. Dom, your friends are in all the other houses. Tell them?”

“‘Course I will,” Dom grinned. She couldn’t wait for this, not after watching tryouts. Slytherin were the last ones to have a full team recruited and so it made sense to hold the first games, albeit unofficial games, so soon. It meant that no one could have too much practise over the others. “Pajamas or actual clothes?”

“Pajamas. Even the players wear them. It’s led to a few accidents, according to my brother,” she explained. “Not like, injuries or anything, but ripped clothes and just sort of looking like idiots. The upper years pass round these heated orb things so we don’t get too cold.”

“Middle of the night in September doesn’t sound great for nice weather,” Adrian agreed. “Hey, has anyone seen Kat and Chase, or are they still being yelled at by McGonagall?”

“I saw McGonagall on my way back from the library like an hour ago so they might be with Slughorn. He’s supposed to sort out all of the major punishments short of expulsion and suspension,” another one of the boys, Thomas, said. “How long do you think they’ll have detention for? I saw food all over the floor and the walls by the time they were interrupted.”

“A month at the very least.”


	8. Chapter 8

Dom told Kit about the quidditch match in their Charms lesson the next day. The Ravenclaws had yet to hear about it from the others. Split off into partners to practise their spell work, even though no one was so far capable of producing even a spark with their current work, it was easy to talk. Everyone else was. 

“I heard your house’s tryouts went really well,” Kit said, repeatedly doing the spell movement as though something might change. “A few of the fourth years went and spent the whole night talking about it. Do you think you’ll tryout next year?”

“Probably. Worst thing they can do is to say no,” Dom replied, giving up completely on the practise. “How do you just keep going at it? Doesn't it get boring?”

“You just have to keep trying,” she insisted, doing the movement with a bit more flourish. That time the tiniest little burst of light appeared for a split second. Kit grinned. “See?”

“Alright, Miss Know-It-All,” Dom sighed, offering up her wand. “Show me what I’m supposed to do. Even if it’s practise that needs to be done, I might as well do it properly. So I do a swish like this, right?”

Dom demonstrated her movement and watched as Kit tried to hold back a wince. Evidently, she wasn’t very good at this part. Before she even realised what was going on, Kit had grabbed her wrist to guide her through the movements again. The girl was far stronger than her small frame suggested and again Dom had to remember that she wasn’t human. When she had swung down from the staircases a few days earlier, it should have been more obvious.

They were much closer than Dom originally noticed, when Kit held her wrist, and she felt suddenly very aware of how little distance there was between them. A warm blush spread over her cheeks and Kit, having likely come to the same realisation she had, dropped her wrist quickly. Flitwick was still going around the class to check on how pairs were doing, too far away from them to notice that they weren’t working. Dom couldn’t meet her friend’s eye.

“Sorry if I, um, if I grabbed you too hard,” Kit stammered out. “It’s just I’m not really used to being around other people who aren’t like me and we’re a lot more resilient than … other people.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she blurted out quickly. “Nothing like that. I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. Thank you for helping me, though.”

“Ah, girls, do you think that you could give me a demonstration?” Flitwick asked, coming over to them. He looked expectantly at Kit who had always excelled at their lessons. She did the movement again, making it flourish even more than before and a slightly larger light managed to last just a second. “Wonderful, Miss Greyson. Ten points to Ravenclaw.”

Dom regretted not going first. Kit gave her a reassuring smile. She tried to remember how she had guided her arm but all she could think about was how close they had been and why it suddenly made her feel very uncomfortable when she had never been before. Whilst she wasn’t a touchy feely person like her siblings, she was very close with the people she did like. 

“Come on, Miss Weasley, why don’t you try one more time, hm? I know you’re doing your best,” Flitwick encouraged kindly. Someone behind him snorted discreetly. It was common knowledge that she was not very good at Charms. This time, Dom really went for it and, to everyone’s surprise, a flicker of light appeared briefly at the end of her wand. “Oh, well done, ten points to Slytherin. Right then everyone, I think it’s only fair that, after all of your hard work, you can go to lunch a few minutes early. Pack up.”

“You did awesome,” Kit told her as they shoved their textbooks in their bags. “People shouldn’t have laughed at you because you couldn’t do it the first time. Most of them couldn’t do it at all.”

“People shouldn’t laugh at Adam when he gets over excited about something but they still do,” she pointed out. “People are terrible.”

“We’re not that bad,” Chase drawled, walking over with Eddie. “Or is it a certain group of people? ‘Cause I’m not above using a bit of foul play to get back at some people who couldn’t quite control their giggles earlier. If you want me to?”

“No,” Dom sighed and all three looked pleasantly surprised. “I’d rather do it myself. Makes it more meaningful that way, you know?”

Her friends were back to looking slightly disappointed in her, although in a more teasing manner than her family usually did when she began talking in terms of revenge. It seemed as though they were more than willing to accept it and, in the case of Chase, even help her. Only some of her cousins back home were willing to do that. 

“Are you excited about the games next week?” Eddie asked as they walked towards the Great Hall. “I can’t wait. They don’t have any separation for houses so we can all stand together, unlike the official games.”

“Why are they separated?” Dom asked curiously.

“It stops any possible incidents,” Kit explained. “When two houses are playing, the other two pick a side and then it’s half the school against the other half of the school which could lead to some problems if they’re all in the same area.”

They split up when they reached the hall, going to their own tables and Dom waved over to them as she sat down. Jess, Nadia and Kat were talking about something from the previous lesson but she hadn’t paid much attention to it at the time and had no idea what the conversation was about now. The three kept throwing glances at the Ravenclaw table, specifically the group who had giggled at Dom when Flitwick had asked her to attempt the spell again. 

“What was that?” Adrian asked, looking at the trio.

“We were talking about Dylan, Sadie and Michael,” Jess explained. “They weren’t being the kindest during Charms, even to people in their own house. Traitors.”

“What were they saying?” Dom asked, immediately worried.

“Well, mostly they were just trying to figure out why Kit’s eyes are silver and all glowy,” Nadia began. “Which is fair enough because it’s pretty interesting. But they were being so mean about it. And the way they talked about people who aren’t human. Brought up Hagrid a few times. Kat nearly punched them when they did that, Chase had to hold her back. I think it was Dylan, she suggested that Kit was a Changeling or something like that and then said that she probably shouldn’t be in a class with us because she’d be dangerous.”

Dom felt sick to her stomach. Apparently there were more people in their year who understood what Changelings were and how to identify them. She had a book hidden under her pillow which explained in simple terms the basics about them, taking out from the library when Kit wasn’t looking so as not to make her friend feel uncomfortable, and it explained that the eyes was the best way of identifying but that there were other signs. Signs like advanced strength and senses. She prayed to any god that existed that Kit didn’t hear them talking during the lesson.

“I thought they didn’t let Changelings come here because of what happened last time with all of the riots?” Adrian asked. “They said it was unsafe for the Changeling student, not for us. Why would they care, even if Kit is one?”

“It was never an official rule, it was just for safety reasons,” Chase said calmly. “So long as someone is a witch or wizard, they have a right to come here. Things aren’t as bad since the riots anyway. We were babies back then, the War had only just been over a few years.”

“What else were they talking about?” Dom asked.

Jess looked at her guiltily before speaking: “They weren’t the nicest about how you’re part Veela. Said you were all looks and no brains. Probably why they laughed at you when you couldn’t get the spell right on the first go. Should have hexed them when we had the chance. My grandparents showed me a few before I came here, would have taught them a lesson.”

She smiled in thanks. Jess was easily the tiniest of their group, barely four and a half foot tall, with a slight figure that left her looking closer to Louis’ age that their own. But the fiery determination in her eyes when she said the threat suddenly aged her and Dom knew she never wanted to face her friend in any type of duel if that was what she would like. Would definitely like to have her on her side though.

“I’m planning revenge on them, if you’re interested in helping with that. You didn’t need to hex them for me but if you really want to,” she offered with a smirk.

“If Jess is helping you then we all are,” Adrian said firmly. “Slytherins stick together. What should we do? Something without getting caught, obviously, ‘cause my parents would kill me if I got in trouble in the first month.”

“Switch their wands out for replicas?” Kat suggested. “I could make them, my grandmother used to be a wandmaker in Russia before she moved here. Everyone in the family knows how to do it. Making a few replicas will be easy.”

“Yeah, but we’d need to know what their wands look like, exactly, as well as being able to switch them at a time when they’ll embarrass themselves,” Chase pointed out. 

Dom grinned at them. It felt good to be with people who held the same moral code as she did. Maybe not a good moral code, given what they were planning on doing, but it was the same for all of them and that meant it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. What could come from a little harmful prank, anyway?

“I could ask Kit and Eddie to find out what the wands look like,” she offered. “And we could swap them in our next Charms lesson. Right as Flitwick is going around.”

The group laughed quietly, very aware that there weren’t many people currently in the hall, lunch having only just started, and that anything too much would draw the attention of their soon to be victims. Dom couldn’t wait, just hoping that it would work and none of her friends would get in trouble. She didn’t mind it; her parents were surprised the worst thing she had gotten was a few harsh words from Gabite. Teddy had lowered the standards for how much trouble in school they could get into before they got involved.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jess smiled. “Oh, have you finished that essay for Gabite?”

“Yeah, he held me back last week at lunch and I did it then. He was very surprised that I managed it before the hour was finished. I think I was as well.”

“You spent the entire lesson doodling in your textbook, I’m impressed you took anything on board then,” Adrian said.

“I was doodling on the pages about the lesson,” she protested weakly.


	9. Chapter 9

Dom waited excitedly with the rest of her housemates in the common rooms. To make sure that none of the teachers found out about what was going on, they had to go in staggered groups. Half of each year would be going down to the pitch at a time with the seventh years standing by as watch until everyone was out. First years were the last to go and so they had the longest to wait. It was the same in every House, all of the prefect having spent the month memorising where the teachers would be walking tonight so as to be able to avoid them.

Nadia wouldn’t stop rocking from side to side, bumping into Jess and Kat on alternating swings, her scarf bunched up in her hands. All of them were wearing as many house coloured things as they could since, in the darkness, the players wouldn’t be able to see them otherwise. Teddy had assured her that there would be some light set off by the seventh years, it would be a major health and safety risk if they didn’t, but considering everyone in the Common Room looked like a sea of silver and green, it was still the right thing to do.

“So, we’re playing Gryffindor first, then Ravenclaw and then Hufflepuff and whoever scores the most points at the end is the winner?” Kat asked for clarification. “It isn’t based on how many games are won, does it?”

“Not in this case, no,” their prefect, Mallory, explained patiently. It was the fifth time in as many minutes she’d had to do so. “But when we have the official competition, it is done on games that are won so that it is easier to pick a winner after the last game at the end of the year. The winners get the house cup and the names of all the player put on a plaque and the captain’s name also goes on another list of people in the trophy cabinet.”

“Alright then. How long until we’re going?”

“Not long,” she promised. “The second years have just gone, then the boys are going and then it’s us. Alright?”

“Why do the boys get to go before us?” Jess complained.

“They won the coin toss,” Nadia pointed out.

“I’m sure they cheated.”

“It’s a coin toss.”

“How do you think we’ll do?” Dom asked to break up the bickering. “We’ve got a really good team but I don’t know much about the other Houses. My sister plays as Seeker for Ravenclaws and she’s, unfortunately, really good.”

“What position do you play?” Chase asked, coming over to their group.

“Usually Seeker as well; we would have competitions every Christmas in the snow with a white snitch. We nearly lost it a few times because it was just so invisible. Mum was not happy about that and dad found it hilarious.”

“Alright, first lot of first years,” their Head Girl announced, walking back into the Common Rooms. “Come on, you lot, stay quiet or I’m snitching on you and none of you will be allowed to watch the game. I’m mostly kidding. Now hurry up, we’ve only got ten minutes and all the other houses are down there.”

Dom wished for the first time that they were in a tower like the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Whilst the lake made everything in the common room gorgeous, they had no idea what was going on outside. The pitch, externally at least, would look like it would do on any other night, but internally it held almost the entire school. Her sister would be in the Changing Rooms by now, getting ready for the first game against Gryffindor. Teddy was on the Hufflepuff team, hoping to be made Captain when he went into his sixth year next year, and played as Keeper. They would both be down there, waiting to put on a show.

Kat had begun to rearrange Nadia’s scarf after it had become too knotted again and she could no longer fit her head through it. When the fixing made the problem worse, Mallory had to do it magically, with a few muttered spells and words that Dom knew would get her mouth cleaned out with soap if she used at home. It was quite the complicated knot it seemed.

“Last lot, now come on,” the Head Girl declared. “Really, Mal, you look like you’re about to strangle the poor girl. Come here, kid.”

“Not my fault I’m bad at Charms. Transfiguration is better and we all know how good you are at that, Blaise,” Mallorey shot back with a teasing smirk. “Or do you want me to tell this lot about the time that you transfigured the table into a puddle instead of the frog on top of it into a glass?”

“Shut up, Mal,” Blaise replied, just as good-naturedly as the prefect. “All sorted, kid. Don’t worry, we never get caught. But we can’t take any risks of people shouting. Now let’s get going. We’re not playing first but I wanna see what we’re up against and I need to organise the final plays with the team.”

They walked quietly along the abandoned and dark corridors. The prefects had done a good job of figuring out where the teachers would be at night, the closest call when a teacher was walking away from them as they came to the doors. Dom was right, she realised, as they walked towards the pitch. It looked as though it was completely empty and not a single sound could be heard other than the nightbirds singing and the always ominous noise of the Forbidden Forest that she didn’t think she would ever be able to describe. 

“Just got to enter at a specific place, otherwise the wards won’t let us in,” Mallory explained. “It’s complicated as to why, so don’t ask.”

“What that means is, it happened the first time the wards were put up and no one knows why it happened or how to fix it,” Blaise added. “I’ve gotta go to the Changing Rooms, the team will be waiting there for me. Wish us luck.”

A chorus of good lucks sounded from the four girls and Mallory leant in, giving a quick kiss to Blaise and a muttered good luck that sounded a lot more personal. Both girls had slightly red cheeks as they walked away. Dom struggling to keep up with Mallory’s long strides. She was tall for her age, having both of her parents to thank for that one, but Mallory was also tall as well as several years older.

“Oh, I’m so excited,” Nadia whispered. “This will be amazing!”

“What happens if someone gets hurt?” Jess asked, sounding worried. 

“It’s alright, Madam Abbott is the only member of staff that knows about this and promised to keep it a secret if anyone does get injured during the games,” Mallory reassured.

“She’s probably told Professor Longbottom,” Dom grinned.

“Yeah, but he’s kept our secret so it’s fine.”

They climbed up the stands to where the boys were waiting and Mallory went to stand with the rest of the sixth years. The wards in place over the pitch had to be incredibly powerful since Dom was fairly worried that she would go deaf if it remained at this volume the whole night. A glance at her watch read a minute to midnight. Only a little bit of time left before the first match would start.

“Time to see if those two beaters have gotten more in sync with each other,” Chase yelled at her over the din of everyone else. “If they’re managed that then we stand a good chance of winning at least half of our matches-maybe not getting the scores.”

“It’ll probably be the opposite, we might not win them all but we’ll get through on score,” Dom replied, also yelling. Suddenly, a loud horn went off and fourteen players shot onto the pitch and into the air. She could see her sister at the back of the Ravenclaw team, looking every inch a professional player even though she had only beaten her fear of heights in her second year. Dom had kept that one a secret from everyone but their parents.

“On your marks, get set,” the commentator, a Hufflepuff girl she didn’t recognise, began. “And QUIDDITCH!”

Victoire dived down immediately in chase of the snitch whilst the Chasers began fighting over the quaffle. The Hufflepuff team were far more organised than the Ravenclaws, having selected their team first and having more practise, but it was obvious that the players in blue and gold were far more skilled and flew circles around them.

The score was fifty to nothing when Victoire suddenly swerved around one of the stands and emerged the other side with the snitch held victoriously in her hand. If Dom had thought it was loud at the start, it was nothing compared to the deafening roar that went through them at the end of the first game. All of the players shook hands, some more jokingly than others, and went back into the changing rooms. 

Dom could feel the change in mood in her stand when the Slytherin team burst out onto the pitch. Everything was suddenly more heightened and more tense. Cheering along with her housemates, so loud her voice would be raw the next day, she waved the flag she shared with Adrian proudly. 

These two teams were far closer in skill than the previous game. Every time a Chaser scored and put the two teams equal, one would score again and it would be a constant fight. Evidently, this would be a game based on how well the Seekers played. And the Slytherin seeker was one of the best players Dom had ever seen. But she had yet to see how good the Gryffindor player was. From how they swerved, avoiding players and bludgers, it was obvious that they had a decent amount of skill. 

“They’ve spotted the snitch!” Chase screamed excitedly, jumping up and down where he stood. Dom wondered why they put seats in the stands when it was obvious that no one would ever actually use them. “Go Slytherin! Go Slytherin!”

The chant had barely more than a few repetitions before the green and silver clad player swerved up, the snitch held up triumphantly in hand. Cheers exploded through the stands, even louder than when the previous game had ended and even the Gryffindors were cheering despite having lost. They still had two other games to play before the night ended, as did everyone else.


	10. Chapter 10

It was Slytherin’s last game of the night, having won the previous two against Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. They were in the running to win the entire night, depending on how well they did in this game. Both teams were flying incredible well for a school game and it seemed everything had been increased to an intensity Dom didn’t realise was applicable for something that would seem as small as a match in the middle of the night. 

Kat and Chase were cheering incredibly loudly, in between arguments about if it was ethical for a chaser to ‘accidentally’ fall off their broom and onto the opposite team’s seeker if they were about to catch the snitch before their own team. Everyone had chosen to ignore them and they had all taken a silent promise to never play against the duo in any form of game. She didn’t want to imagine the type of dirty tricks they would pull if they played rugby, the muggle game that Uncle Harry had taught all of them a few years ago. 

“And they’ve spotted the snitch!” the announcer screamed and the stands rioted before confused noises echoed over the grounds. “Never mind. Just an enchanted butterfly. I’m sure we can all agree that it was an honest mistake that two of the school’s best seekers both managed to make at the same time and not a way to prolong the game and make me lose my bet with O’Connell.”

The game continued onwards, long enough for whatever bet the announcer had made to become null and void, until Dom was beginning to feel tired. Adrenaline that had previously been pumping through her veins had stopped and the memory of needing to wake up early for work tomorrow had taken over her mind. Being behind on a few essays wasn’t doing her any favours for her workload. Just as she was about to voice her concerns to Nadia, almost undoubtedly going to receive a mini speech on needing to organise her time better, it looked as though the snitch had actually been spotted this time.

Both seekers had dived at almost a hundred degree drop, curving backwards on themselves to get to where they needed to be, and were now soaring only a few inches above the ground. Barely a few feet in front of them a tiny golden flash glinted. One last kick of speed ended in a mess of tangled limbs on the floor and the crowds going silent for the first time since Dom had arrived, everyone holding their breath to find out what the final outcome was. 

A hand clad in a silver and green seeker’s glove shot into the air, the snitch held triumphantly in it.

Dom was convinced that her hearing had been permanently damaged from the delighted screaming that erupted from Slytherin House that moment. There was house pride and there was celebrating the way that they were celebrating. It all passed in a blur, the first years being rushed off to the common rooms first as they all simultaneously remembered the vast majority were still only eleven and probably shouldn’t be up so late, and suddenly they were back in their dorm, dancing around in ecstatic glee. 

“We won! We won!” Jess chanted excitedly, jumping up and down on her bed and narrowly missing the curtains above it with each bounce. “Oh my god, that was so amazing! Wasn’t that amazing?”

“Better than anything they would have played in a Russian school,” Kat agreed. “This is pretty good for when we have the actual Cup this year, isn’t it?”

“Means we have good players and are already ahead on the other teams,” Dom agreed. “Now we just have to make sure that we stay ahead of them. Oh, what was the outcome of your argument with Chase about whether or not it was ethical to purposefully fall on a player to better your own chances?”

“We were gonna talk about it again at breakfast,” the girl shrugged. “Wasn’t long enough to properly go over everything. But I still think it would be okay so long as you made it look like an accident.”

“How would you go about making it look like an accident if it benefits your team?” Nadia asked curiously. “Surely that would be obvious?”

“It depends how you fall. If you fall when you’re going to do something good for your team, you lose out on the good thing and so it would seem like an accident. If you get injured when you do it. If you only just knock the person off it wouldn’t look planned because if it was planned then you would land on them properly. ”

“Well they wouldn’t think if you planned it that you wouldn’t land on them fully because you had a plan where you don’t fall on them properly,” Jess pointed out. “So that would be a reasonable guess for what could happen.”

“But the whole point of a plan is to come up with something that nobody else would expect. Nobody would expect the plan to work which is why it would work. Although you could only do it once.”

“Alright first years, shut up and go to bed,” the house captain said, sticking her head in through the door. “Your prefect is already asleep so I’m doing your rounds. Go to bed or you’ll find out why I’m captain.”

“We just saw why you’re the captain,” Dom replied.

“Just shut up and go to sleep, Weasley,” she sighed before shutting the door firmly behind her. Dom settled into her bed, heavy eyelids closing before she’d even realised that she was falling asleep. Waking up the next morning to her very loud alarm clock and Nadia already dressed and ready, talking about how they were going to the library to do homework, was not very welcome.   
“Come on, you all need to get up or the boys will beat us to breakfast and they make so much mess,” Nadia complained. “And they eat all the bacon in our section.”

“I thought you don’t like bacon?” Dom mumbled into her pillow.

“No, but Jess likes it and she gets sulky in the morning if the boys get it before she does,” she explained before gently lifting the pillow from under Dom’s head and beginning to violently beat her with it until the other girl finally got out of bed to get ready. “Are any of the others coming with us for homework or will it be just the two of us?”

“Mellie is, she said she’s anxious about the essay due on Wednesday even though she’s rewritten it about five times already. The others will most probably be in bed like every other reasonable student will be doing today.”

Breakfast was a quiet affair for everybody involved, not a single person appearing to have gotten a decent night’s sleep. Most of Slytherin table appeared occupied by zombies, the ones who had partied the longest the night before after their victory. Their prefects seemed almost unconscious in their seats, Mallory leaning heavily on Blaise as she slowly fed herself cereal whilst looking like an actual zombie. 

Dom couldn’t catch the eye of either Eddie or Kit at the Ravenclaw table who seemed like they couldn’t even keep theirs open but the others all grinned in response when she gave them a little wave. Her own mind seemed so frazzled by the lack of sleep, fairly certain she hadn’t fallen properly asleep until two because of the celebrating upper years, that it was unlikely any essay written today would make little to no sense. Even her food seemed tasteless as her brain slowly woke up, not quite with the world to fully process all of her senses. 

“Ready for the library?” Mellie asked excitedly at the end of breakfast. “It’ll be good to have some other people help me with my essay, I just don’t think I’ve done it right.”

“Well, if the professor doesn’t like how you’ve done the one you give in, you can give them one of the other drafts and see if they like that one,” Dom reassured, squeezing her friend’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’re smart and you work ridiculously hard. Put both of those together and you end up with a very good essay with a very good mark. Now come on, I have two days to write four essays.”

“How do you get so far behind all of the time? We’ve been here a month and we don’t get that many essays,” Nadia pointed out. 

“Gabite sets me an essay every time I get him annoyed in a class. Considering how much I annoy him, I think I am as up to date as possible on my essays. Besides, only one of the essays is due this week but I’m going to be busy every evening because of Slughorn’s stupid Slug Club meetings. Please tell me one of you guys are going.”

“Kit is,” Mellie said. “So are a couple of other people from Ravenclaw and one other Gryffindor. You’ll have someone. Apparently the other girl from Ravenclaw isn’t as nice as she probably should be since her and Kit will be sharing a dorm room for seven years.”

“I think I know who you’re talking about,” Dom replied, thinking of the girl who always laughed at her whenever she messed up in Charms. Definitely didn’t seem to have a very high opinion of Kit for whatever reason. “What does he even need a meeting every evening for? How interesting can all of these people be? I’m sure as hell not.”

“You’re family is,” Nadia said. “You’re a Weasley. They’re war heroes. You’re mum has a medal from the British government and the French government. You’re dad is a curse-breaking war hero. They’re a big deal.”

“My dad cries when one of the spiders on the stairs die and my mum makes them lunch at the same time as us. They’re aren’t that big of a deal. Believe me.”


	11. Chapter 11

After the quidditch match, the school year seemed to pass faster and faster and, before Dom could even realise it, the half term had arrived with the promise of a week away from classes and the Halloween feast Victoire and Teddy talked about. She had carefully developed her reputation with the teachers over those two months, learning just how far she could push their buttons and where she actually had to work; both to avoid a detention and to understand the subject. Charms was still a difficult one. Everyone had settled into a sense of routine, attending their lessons and then hanging out at whatever small spot of the school they had claimed for their own.

They still stayed in the library, annoying Madam Pince who didn’t appreciate their talking, and the knowledge that they had a week away from classes meant that homework could momentarily be pushed to the back of their minds. On the first day of the half term, the first Monday when Dom didn’t have to wake up to an alarm clock blaring in her ear, Jess decided to blare out a siren and wake everybody in the room up. 

“If you can’t justify what you just did, expect to answer to your maker very soon,” Nadia growled darkly, clambering out of bed whilst Kat muttered a few rude sounding Russian phrases under her breath. Dom was still a little too dead to the world to realise what was going on at first.

“I thought that since it was our first day off, we could go and surprise the others and have a big day of it,” she said, blinking innocently at them. “I’m sorry if I annoyed you all.”

“Manipulative shrew,” Kat grinned appreciatively. “Are we waking them up with the siren as well? Or do you think they’re already up?”

“I’m impressed the entire house isn’t already awake,” Nadia said, walking over to the door. “But, now that we’re awake there’s no going back. What did you all have planned for today? Other than the lie-in we have now been denied.”

Dom smiled ruefully. “I have a ton of essays to do, and I have to meet with Gabite. He didn’t appreciate the comments I made in my last lesson about the types of people who made comments about people like me. Only one who got a worse punishment was the one he heard making a rude comment. Out with Hagrid tonight, going through the forest. Sounds fun.”

“I still think you shouldn’t have got in trouble for it,” Jess pouted slightly. “All you did was defend your friend, the whole thing the school is all about.”

“And myself. I’m not fully human, either,” Dom reminded. “Don’t seem to have many of the benefits of my Veela genes but, hey, at least I’m blood and can be distinguished from the rest of my family in photos.”

The boys were drearily awake in the common room, giving death stares to the entire group before they pointed at Jess to show that she was the one responsible. No one else seemed to have woken up, no one even in the common rooms having fallen asleep there the previous night. That was rare. 

“How long do we have before breakfast starts?” Chase asked. His stomach grumbled loudly.

“Are you already hungry?” Kat asked in disbelief. “You at twice the amount I did last night, at least. You know, my grandmother would have a few choice words to say about you, let me tell you that much.”

“My grandmother would just keep giving him food until he exploded,” Dom joked, looking through the multiple homeworks she had to have finished by the end of the week whilst also attending Gabite’s detentions and nights with Hagrid. It would be a long week. “I’m gonna have to miss out on all of the fun activities Jess has planned for us all because of this stuff so I’ll just head down to the library. See if I can get at least half of an essay out before breakfast. Wish me luck.”

The tired chorus of goodbyes followed her out the door. 

Early in the morning, the castle had a strange feeling about it. Only a few cats walked along the halls, giving Dom a wide enough berth. She wasn’t sure when Madam Pince woke up, or if she even slept at all, but the library was always open no matter how early in the morning. To her surprise, there were a few students dotted around the tables, head buried in books and writing frantically, students stuck with a backlog of work and teachers hounding them down. Students just like her. 

She didn’t quite know what it was that caused so much work to pile up. The prank war with some of the Ravenclaws who needed to learn when to keep their opinions to themselves had escalated a lot in the passing weeks and Dom had devoted a lot of time towards it, meaning she had neglected her studies a lot. That was probably what had caused it to pile up, now that she was thinking about it.

Another surprise greeted her as she turned the corner and saw Kit working at one of the desks. Her parchment was covered in a language Dom didn’t understand as she made notes from a dusty old book, also written in the same language. The girl didn’t even look up as she sat down, to engrossed in whatever work it was that she was doing, but did when Dom got out the pile of homework she had to somehow get through. 

“What is all of that?” Kit asked in shock, her accent sounding thicker than normal, drawing out the sounds a bit longer. Dom quite liked it.

“Homework I need to catch up on or my parents get sent an owl about it, deadline is the end of the week where I have a meeting with McGonagall to make sure that I can actually do it properly anyway,” she sighed. “What are you doing?”

“Part of my stuff with Madam Abbot is to keep me connected to my own world. Since there aren’t any other students like me, the most practice I have with my own language is with letters to my uncle and that’s only once every two weeks so she’s been asking me to make notes on some of the books in the library to explain things better and to have more practice.”

“Do you miss speaking it? I get homesick sometimes. Is it harder?”

“Probably,” Kit admitted. “Just difficult sometimes. There are a whole bunch of other students who don’t speak English as a first language, Kat doesn’t for one thing, but they all have each other. Madam Abbot just helps with some of the other problems. Especially if other students are saying some not so nice things about people like me and other students decide to take things into their own hands.”

The last part was said with a knowing smirk at her. Apparently the conversation in Charms had caught her attention, then, and it would have been hard to miss the incident in DADA when the particular students in question couldn’t seem to cast a single spell.

“What do you think about students who take things into their own hands?” Dom asked.

“I very much appreciate it, so long as those students don’t get in trouble for what they are doing. It wouldn’t be very worth it otherwise. My uncle always says you have to know the rules well, not to follow or break, but to bend and avoid. I think there’s a very good reason he was the last member of kin to be allowed custody in my parents’ will.”

The last part was said with her brow furrowed, as though the thought has only just occurred to her. She shrugged and focused back on her work. 

“Do you speak French at all?” Kit asked, almost absent-mindedly. 

“Not very well. Starting to learn again, though. Want it to be a surprise for mum,” Dom explained, frowning as she reviewed her most recent paragraph, “Victoire’s fluent and Louis’ not got as much interaction with the English side of the family as the French; he gets anxious around lots of people and the Burrow always has lots of people, and mum’s parents dote on him something ridiculous.”

“I wasn’t aware that a boy could be born with the Veela genes?”

“Neither were mum and dad. Hell of a surprise when he was born, I’m told. But, yeah, he’s more Veela than I am. All of us have the blonde hair and stuff, but him and Victoire have the grace and all of that.”

Dom blushed slightly, remembering her shortcomings in that regard. The Weasley ginger genes had thankfully missed her but that was the best she could say about it. Kit didn’t seem to notice, simply humming the correctly sounding noise whenever it was most appropriate.

“Did you return your book?”

“What book?”

“The one on Changelings you got out a few weeks ago. It should be due back now. I hear punishments for late returns are quite strict; especially when the teachers know that the particular student is a known troublemaker.”

“You knew I got the book out?”

“Of course; you did your best to be subtle but you weren’t very good at it. I appreciate it, I really do, but those sorts of books … they’re not the most accurate about people like me. Normally use more derogatory words than we would like, never include anything about our own language. Rather like what many muggle textbooks do about areas they had previously colonised; trying to make themselves seem better. Because the wizard world never do that.”

She snorted at that comment. It was a well-known fact that the wizarding world had just the same problems with prejudice as the muggle world, and then a lot more, but those in charge seemed fairly happy to ignore it. Somethings weren’t as bad as it had been in the muggle world a few decades before but they hadn’t improved since. 

“Just figured you wouldn’t want to explain it to a whole bunch of people, all the time, if you even wanted to explain it at all. So I picked the book so I’d understand it a bit better. Quite frankly, I understand everything a bit less.”

“No talking in the library!” a voice hissed from behind a bookshelf. The girls quieted down until she had walked away, very aware of how early in the morning it was to be annoying any member of authority in a school. 

Dom split the rest of the day between the library, studiously working on her many overdue essays and homeworks, and the Great Hall for mealtimes. She barely saw sunlight and by the time she had exhausted herself beyond any more work, darkness had already fallen. As she trudged her way down to the dungeons, she saw a glimmer of her sister’s easily recognisable hair and Teddy’s even more recognisable blue curls. 

They were whispering together.

“I’m telling you, she just hasn’t realised yet,” Victoire was saying, tiredly. “I even gave her hints, you know, because I just assumed she did. Everyone just assumed it. What if she isn’t? I have a very good older sister speech to that kid and it might have been all for nothing. I like her and she still gets nervous whenever we’re in the common room together.”

“It takes some people a lot longer to figure it out,” Teddy reassured. “And besides, she might not actually be what everyone else has assumed. There’s no proof.”

“You mean other than how she looks at the kid?”

“Yeah, it is pretty damning evidence. But we just have to give her time. She’s eleven, remember? Did you have any idea what type of person you were interested in at that age?”

“I was interested in you.”

“Nice save.”

“Any time.”

They giggled and Dom took that as her cue to leave. She had no idea what that conversation was about and wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. It was about a first year, possibly her, from what Victoire was saying, but the rest of it was a mystery.


	12. Chapter 12

The second day of the half term followed in much the same way as the first. One of the major improvements of the second day in comparison to the first was that Jess had learnt her lesson about waking them all up early when they didn’t have to. Apparently the sausage in her jelly and ice cream pudding had gotten the point across better than their tired complaining from the morning. 

Dom still found herself waking up earlier than she wanted to so that she could go to the library. There were still three essays she had to catch up on and several sections of all her textbooks she just didn’t understand to go over. It was as though, just when she was finally getting on top of everything, they added even more to deal with. And the amount of reading she had to do was unbearable.

When she came to her normal table in the library, Kit was not there. Probably sleeping in like everyone else was doing. Breakfast was half an hour later than it was during timetabled weeks and so people did what they could to make the most of it. Sat just around from the table, however, were some people Dom did not want to be seeing as she did her work. 

Dylan, Sadie and Michael.

Three of the people who seemed to have made it their life’s mission to make sure everyone else knew that they were hated by the trio. Dom wondered what they were doing in the library so early in the morning. There didn’t even seem to be anyone else in the entire place, barring Madam Pince, and yet they had ended up in the same place that she had. The universe clearly didn’t like her too much. 

“All I’m saying is, what happens if someone like her does lose control?” Sadie was saying, whispering on instinct in the silence of the room, as she rounded the corner to where Dom was sat. “And what if more of them start coming here. She’s not the first to have magic and she won’t be the last. Just one would cause enough problems if they lost control but more? Don’t see why there aren’t rules against it.”

“Why there aren’t rules against what?” Dom asked sharply, very aware of what Sadie was complaining about. They had figured out what Kit was, for definite, the week before and had made a point to spread it all around school. Most people didn’t care, most people in their year not really understanding what had happened with the last prospective student, and many of the upper years doing what they could to stop it. A lot of that was due to Victoire and Teddy, which Dom had thanked them for.

“Why aren’t there rules keeping us safe from freaks like your friend,” Dylan explained, the way she said ‘friend’ making it seem like a dirty word instead of something that was otherwise positive. “She’s a werewolf with a bit more intelligence and a superiority complex.”

“What’s wrong with being a werewolf at all? And what’s wrong with being a Changeling. You’re human and you’re pretty damn awful. Hell, I’m not fully human, I’m pretty terrible, and yet I’m still better than you three.”

Michael rolled his eyes dramatically. It made him look like the cartoons that Uncle Harry had shown them when they were kids. 

“Whatever, Weasley. Get back to your homework. Merlin knows you need to spend a lot of time working on everything you need to do. What did you get on the essay Gabite set last week? Or have you not handed it in yet? See, we could multitask between the prank war and our work.”

“Is that why you lost the prank war? Because you could multitask so well with both it and your homework? Is that your superpower, huh? Multitasking?”

Dom watched as their eyes narrowed, apparently not expecting a response. She took the opportunity of their silence and the fact that the essay they mentioned was the only one she had handed in, to speak again.

“Oh, and in case you were wondering what I got on the Gabite essay, full marks. Only one in the year. So I guess I don’t need to ask if you scored any higher. Now shut about people who aren’t human before I show you a reason to be worried.”

She focused back on her essay, the words all jumbled together after her lack of concentration. The three walked off in a huff, talking in hushed voices about whatever it was that bullies talked to each other about, and left the library. Dom still wasn’t sure why they were in the library so early, she was the only one in school to have an actual reason, but now they weren’t talking about Kit so harshly she found herself not caring.

“If they give Kit or anyone trouble like that again,” Madam Pince said, coming out from behind a bookshelf, “You tell me or another teacher immediately. I’ve seen all the proof that they would say something about that, so it would be both of our words against theirs. Do you understand?”

Dom would like to have said that the noise she made when Madam Pince appeared was one of mute surprise and not a terrified squeak that echoed through the rooms, but she would be lying and she was too tired to come up with a convincing lie. She simply nodded and Madam Pince disappeared back into hiding again. The only conversation that she had ever had with the librarian was when she was being told off from being too loud during break or lunch. And that was usually with the others present. Dom had been under the impression that Madam Pince hated all of them and instead it seemed as though she was willing to do a lot to help them.

She didn’t mention any of what had happened to the others. Dylan, Sadie and Michael kept mostly to themselves, sat in a small group a short distance away from Kit at mealtimes, and simply glared daggers at Dom whenever they could, to which she repaid the action. Nothing uncommon to deal with and nothing that drew the attention of the others who were busy talking about what else they were planning to do for the rest of the week. By Thursday Dom predicted she would be finished with all of her overdue homework, just in time to start working on everything else due for after the break. 

Just as she was mulling over her thoughts of how to get through a Herbology essay as fast as possible to not miss out on the midnight feast the rest of the Slytherins were planning, there was a commotion at the Ravenclaw table. Dom looked up to see Kit storming out of the hall and Dylan stood angrily, covered in orange juice. She quickly followed her friend, running faster than the teachers, and cornered Kit before she could go down yet another hallway and disappearing into the maze that was the rest of the school.

“What happened?” she asked as Kit leant against the wall, her breathing heavy and eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Did they say something? Are you hurt?”

“They asked me what colour my eyes are,” Kit replied through gritted teeth. “What my actual eye colour is. I told them it’s a very personal question and I didn’t want to tell them but they kept pestering me and they then brought up that I probably wouldn’t know if I had eyes like my parents because of the riots and the way they said it just made me so angry.”

“Is that why you threw your juice on them?”

“No, no, that wasn’t me. But now I can’t go back because I can feel that the glow is gone and I’m not supposed to be around people who aren’t family because only family are supposed to see our true eyes and … and … and…”

She broke off, sliding down the wall and holding her knees tightly to her chest. Dom wasn’t sure what to do. There weren’t very many Veela traditions or expectations, none that had passed to her or her mother, and so she didn’t know how to make her friend feel better. An idea came to her.

“We could tell the teachers? If you tell them you explained it, and then they still kept going, there’s no way they’d get out of being punished for it. I can even get Madam Pince to help out. She said if I ever heard them saying things about you, that she would back me if I went to see a teacher about it.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

“What’s is like being only part human? I know that I experience things differently because I’m not at all human but I figured maybe someone like you might have that as well,” Kit asked in a small voice.

“I didn’t really notice. I’m an eighth Veela and I’m pretty certain the gene skipped me completely, but mum told me when I was seven that it meant I wasn’t fully human and that some people might think less of me because of it. She said it’s like if anyone was different, they would be treated like that, but the specifics would depend on what was different. I was raised with the rest of the wizarding world so, other than the occasional article that makes a few rude comments, I’ve never really had a problem. Mum and Aunt Gabrielle did, used to get made fun of at school because people assumed they only had their looks, not any brains.”

McGonagall rounded the corner and sighed in relief when she saw them.

“Girls, to my office please. You are not in trouble, I promise you that much, for once, but we need to talk. Come on now, hurry.”

Dom didn’t completely trust it when McGonagall said they weren't in trouble. There wasn’t much that she could imagine Kit doing and being punished for it, but anyone around Dom at the time of an incident was automatically considered a suspect. Sometimes even Dom was innocent. That wasn’t very often. But she walked them through the long way of the school, avoiding where the students would be after leaving the great hall and reducing the risk of being found. 

Kit was barely looking where she was going, her eyes still almost completely shut, and I wondered what it would be like to only be around your family when you were upset, what it would be like for that to be common practice, for negative emotions to be so hidden from people that you would risk walking around with your eyes closed instead of accidentally showing someone. One of the books I had read explained to me that it was like being outside naked for them; completely embarrassing for everyone involved and very much not socially acceptable.

“In you go, girls. I am not angry at you, as I am sure you can tell.”

Dom couldn’t.

“I do not wish to talk about the incident in the hall until all of the facts have been collected but, rest assured Kit, you will not be punished for it. Miss Weasley, I would like to think you had nothing to do with the juice.”

“If I could take credit for it, I would. Why do you want to talk to us?”

“Letters to the next first years went out yesterday and there was a particular news article this morning that, quite crudely, explained there would be another student like Kit attending next year. It may have sparked what occurred earlier. For students who might have a hard time adjusting when they arrive, we have second years look after them to explain how everything works. I thought, for this particular student, the two of you would be suitable candidates to do such a job. It is not optional.”

“Sure, that sounds fine,” Dom replied, not thinking it over much. Victoire had done the same thing in her second year; she had said all she did was show them around a bit and make sure they kept on top of their work. Second years were picked because that was the easiest year to be in in the school; nothing important going on.

“I’d love to,” Kit said sincerely.


End file.
